
THE 



LIFE AND SERVICES 



Major Giimm (}EOKG!i H. THOMAS. 



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THE 



LIFE AND SERVICES 



MaIOR GhNI:RAL GliOKGI: H. TllOMAS. 



A PAPER 

READ FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMlilA COMMANDFRY 

OF TIIK 

MILITARY ORDER 

OF THE 

LOYAL LEGION OF THI: LINLH-D STATES, 

APRIL 6, 18S7. 
BY COMPANION 

GILBERT Cr'kNIFFIN, 

/V' I.icu/enant Colonel U. S. Volunteers. 



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WASHINGTON, D. C. : 

JUDD & DETWEILER, PRINTERS. 

1887. 







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Pajor ('general ('*)Coi*ik S. ^^homais!. 



As in art, the elements of truth, beauty, and strength unite to 
form a masterpiece, so does this combination enter into the 
formation of the grand character of whom it is my pleasure to 
talk to you to-night. 

True, strong, and brave, George H. Thomas, the greatest of 
Virginians since the days of Washington, threw his whole soul 
into the scale on the side of the nation, against the secessionists, 
who sought to carry his native State out of the Union, into the 
thrall of the Southern Confederacy. 

Even as he would have, later on. ordered a charge to recover a 
battery of artillery, captured by the enemy, so did the capture of 
Virginia by the conspirators of South Carolina awaken within the 
great heart of Thomas a determination to stand by the Govern- 
ment, and to win it back to the Union, even at the point of the 
bayonet. 

It was my great good fortune, to serve as a staff officer during 
four years of war, under the leadership of this accomplished 
soldier, and I do but echo the sentiments of all who had the honor 
to know him intimately, when I say, he was our Chevalier Bayard, 
our knight, without fear and without reproach. 

Since then I have been better able to understand how the 
knights of old were proud to rally around the person of their 
king, right glad to be the first to encounter death in his defense. 

George Henry Thomas was born in Southampton County, 
Virginia, on the 31st of July, 1S16, of a good fomily, descended 
on the father's side from the English pioneers, and on tliat of his 
mother from the French Huguenots. 



— 4 — 

The first twenty years of bis life were spent in a quiet home, 
subject to the refining influences of a Christian family, and in 
going through with the regular course of study embraced in the 
curriculum of Southampton Academy. Having graduated from 
that Institution he entered the office of his uncle, James Rochelle, 
clerk of the county court, where he commenced the study of law. 
IJul be was not destined to become a lawyer. Hon. John F. 
Mason, Rejiresentative in Congress from the district of which 
Southampton formed a part, offered him a cadetship in the Mili- 
tary Academy at West Point, which he promptly accepted, and 
on the first day of June, 1836, his name was enrolled as a cadet 
in the Academy, which for the next four years was to witness his 
triumphs and defeats, in the vigorous schooling prepared by the 
Government of the United States for its embryo soldiers. 

It is unnecessary to follow him through the course at West Point. 
Honest and studious, scorning imposture, it may well be believed 
that in many respects the boy gave promise of the man. On the 
30th of June, 1840, he was graduated from the Military Academy, 
twelfth in a class of forty-two members. Looking over the list 
one catches the names of many a second lieutenant, which later 
on is boldly written, for good or ill, in his country's history. 
Paul O. Hebert, William T. Sherman. Stewart Van Vliet, John 
P. McCown, George H. Thomas, Richard S. Ewell, James G. 
Martin, George W. Getty, Bushrod R. Johnson. Picture to 
yourselves these titans in a conflict of arms that shook the world, 
when in the days of their adolescense they watched with sedulous 
anxiety the growth upon their downy chins, wrote rhymes in 
hontir of tlieir sweethearts, or stole through the guard lines for 
a niglit at Benny Havens. 

On .the first of July following his graduation, George H. Thomas 
was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Third Artillery. 
After a brief stay at Fort Columbus, New York harbor, he was 
ordered with his company to Florida where he i)articipated in 



— 5 — 

the Seminole war, wliich gained him a brevet as first lieutenant 
for gallantry and good conduct. Assigned to duty at various 
stations on the Altantic coast he was promoted to first lieutenant 
in April, 1844, and on the 26th of June of the following year 
he left Fort Moultrie with his company under orders to report 
to General Zachary Taylor at New Orleans. Battery E, Third 
Artillery, under command of Lieutenant Thomas, and the Third 
and Fourth Infantry, under General Taylor, sailed thence to 
Corpus Christi, arriving in August, being the first United States 
troops to occupy the soil of Texas. 

Advancing with the army to the Rio Grande, Thomas's Bat- 
tery E and Battery I, with the Seventh Infantry, under Major 
Brown, were ordered to garrison the fort opposite Matamoras. 
Here they were subjected to bombardment from the 3d to the 
9th of May, 1846, while General Taylor was fighting the battles 
of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. Defeated in these en- 
gagements the retreating Mexicans attempted to cross the river 
under the guns of the fort, which, showering a temjiest of shot 
into their ranks, increased their panic and demoralization. 

Lieutenant Thomas took part in the battles about Monterey, 
where his conspicuous courage in action gained for him a brevet 
captaincy for "gallant and meritorious conduct." General 
Twiggs, commanding the First Division, in his ofificial report of 
these engagements complimented Captain S. Ridgely and Braxton 
Bragg, and their subalterns, George H. Thomas, John F. Reyn- 
olds, Chas. L. Kilburn, and Stephen G. French, for their "skill 
and good conduct under the heaviest fire of the enemy." If the 
veil of futurity could have been lifted but slightly, how wonder- 
ful, to the eyes of these young lieutenants, would have been the 
vision presented, when, in the smoke and carnage of Chicka- 
mauga, the two first officers of Battery E, Bragg and Thomas, 
were turning an hundred guns upon each other 3 Reynolds, the 
brave and lamented, laid down his life on the first day at Gettys- 



— 6 — 

burg ; while French with a division was watching the flank. 
But the lioary-headed writer of the report had lowered the flag 
at the behest of the Southern Confederacy. 

But it was at Buena Vista that Thomas, in command of one 
section of his battery, distinguished himself under the eyes of 
his commander. " Lieutenant Thomas was detached at different 
times," wrote General Taylor, "and in every situation exhibited 
conspicuous skill and gallantry." We can well believe it, and 
can rejoice with him over his promotion to brevet major, con- 
ferred upon him for his conduct in these engagements. At the 
close of the Mexican war Lieutenant Thomas returned to the 
United States with his company, where he was presented with 
a splendid sword by the citizens of his native county. From 
this time until the 31st of March, 185 1, his duties were similar 
in most respects to those of other artillery officers. Peace 
brooded over the land, and, to enjoy it the more thoroughly, 
he offered his honest hand and heart to Miss Frances L. Kellogg 
of Troy, New York, and was accepted. He was now at his 
Alma Mater, instructor of artillery and cavalry, and on the 9th 
of November, 1852, he was married. In a service where few 
die and less resign it is not surprising that thirteen years had 
passed without bringing a captain's commission, but it came on 
Christmas Eve, 1853, a welcome gift to the newly married pair. 

The following spring he was assigned to the command of a 
battalion of artillery, with orders to conduct it to California by 
way of Panama, where he arrived in June, 1854, and was assigned 
to duty at Fort Yuma, where he remained a year, although he 
had previously been transferred to the cavalry with the rank of 
major. 

Major Thomas joined his regiment at Jefferson Barracks, Mo., 
in September, 1855. Albert Sidney Johnston was colonel, 
Robert E. Lee, lieutenant colonel, William J. Hardee, and 
George H. Thomas, majors. Mr. Jefferson Davis, Secretary of 



— 7 — 

War, in organizing this regiment doubtless had an eye to the 
coming contest. Of the twenty-five officers graduated at West 
Point, seventeen were southern-born representatives of the best 
famihes, and the best representatives of the South in the army. 
When the test came bur seven were found faithful among the 
faithless — Thomas, Royall, Chambliss, Harrison, R. W. Johnson, 
Kenner Garrard, and McArthur. 

The next four years were spent by Major Thomas on duty with 
his regiment on the frontier. An instance of his fortitude is 
given by his biographer. Chaplain Van Hurne, which will close 
this portion of his history. 

While on an exploring expedition to the sources of the Concho 
and Colorado rivers, he fell in with a band of hostile Indians 
and a skirmish ensued. Major Thomas was struck by an arrow 
which passed through his chin and penetrated his breast. He 
withdrew it himself, without assistance, and kept up the fight 
until victory was gained and the Indians routed. 

On his return from this campaign he applied for, and obtained, 
a year's leave of absence on the ist of November, i860. Major 
Thomas had been a critical observer of events in the Department 
of Texas, and bore with him the impression that military affairs 
were not safe in the hands of General Twiggs. 

Major Thomas was now in the prime of life. Twenty years 
service in the army had, to this quiet abstemious man, brought 
few of the ills that prey upon the system. He had no vices. 
His mind trained to study had never succumbed to the vis inertia 
of frontier posts. 

True to himself, to his wife, to his friends, and to God, he 
was equally true to his country. But there came a day when 
his loyalty to the Government was to be put to the severest test 
known to an American soldier and citizen. 

Major Thomas had never been a politician. He was a soldier 
of the Republic, whose training and habits led him to love the 



flag of his country and look upon the President of the United 
States as the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy. 
Yet his birth place was in Virginia. Every foot of her soil was 
rendered inexpressibly dear to him by early associations and by 
the proud traditions of that ancient Commonwealth. 

Added to this was the fact that most of his army friends were 
outspoken in their hostility to the contemplated coercive policy 
by which the seceded States were to be forced back into the 
Union. I suspect that few of you know the pangs of regret, 
the heartache, with which a Southern Union man saw his dearest 
friends take sides with the Southern Confederacy. Friends, en- 
deared by ties of consanguinity and by long, deeply rooted, 
affection. Friends, whose loyalty to principle, to the church, 
aye, even to country, you never had reason to doubt ; men whose 
friendship you have been proud to claim, women whose smiles 
have fallen upon you like a benediction. 

A Union recruiting officer in Kentucky thus portrays his per- 
sonal experience: When, in the early summer of 1861, General 
Wm. Nelson came to Kentucky to establish a military camp 
within its borders, he left his home in Paris and joined him at 
Lancaster where he was given authority to assist in recruiting a 
regiment. On his return to the town that had been his home 
for years he found the attitude of his standing in the community 
sensibly changed. Men who had been his father's devoted 
friends, and who, at his death, had welcomed his children to 
their homes and firesides, passed him with averted faces. The 
women of his father's church, who cherished his memory with 
affection, and whose friendship he had inherited, refused to 
lecognize him. He walked the streets a stranger to those whom 
he loved. Cut adrift from the tried friends and companions of 
his youth he was obliged, in hours of deepest peril, to seek 
support from men whom he scarcely knew. Men were called 
to their doors at midnight and shot in cold blood, or were 



— 9 — 

embroiled in political discussions and murdered for no reason 
except that they were Union men. There were martyrs in those 
days. The sundering of all the ties of kindred and home, to a 
man like George H. Thomas, was a cruel blow, but, knowing 
him as I did, I fancy it was not more painful than parting 
with the tried friends who had been the companions of his 
army life for nearly a quarter of a century. 

It would not have been suprising if Major Thomas had deter- 
mined to take no part in what was considered a fratricidal war. 
Yet not for a moment did his mind waver as to his duty if 
called upon to draw his sword for the General Government. 
On his way from Richmond to Washington he was injured by 
a railroad accident, which, though not producing paralysis, was 
a severe shock to the spine, from the effects of -which he never 
fully recovered. He reached New York on January iSth, and 
from that city wrote an old friend. Colonel Francis H. Smith, 
Superintendent of the Virginia Military Institution, offering his 
services as a teacher in that institution, as the injury he had 
received led him to believe, as he said, that "it would soon 
be necessary for him to look up some other means of sup- 
port." This letter has been quoted by Confederate writers to 
his discredit. Before going to New York, when able to travel, 
he came to Washington, and, calling upon General Scott, ex- 
pressed his conviction that General Twiggs meditated treachery. 
He also expressed the same opinion to General Joseph E. 
Johnston, Quartermaster General. At this time there had been 
no actual secession of any State except South Carolina, but the 
threatenings of the storm were distinctly audible in all the slave 
States. For one, I care not what may be said of the feelings 
which animated a southern man of the high character of Gen- 
eral Thomas. Through what seasons of doubt and unrest the 
tempest-tossed soul passed before it safely anchored in the harbor 
of the National Union. What is of infinitely more imjiortance 

2 



is, 3nce having crfercd his sword to the General Government, 
was lie true to his allegiance? To that question there is but 
on. answer — north and south. He emblazoned it in char- 
acters of living flame at Mill Springs, Stone River, Chickamauga, 
and Mission Ridge, through a hundred days of battle from 
Chattanooga to Atlanta, and left the crowning impress of his 
loyalty and genius on the scattered hosts of Hood's army at 
the battle of Nashville. 

On the loth of April, two days before the bombardment of 
Fort Surnpter, Major Thomas was ordered to take command of 
the Second Cavalry — on the arrival of the first detachment at 
New York, to send two companies to Washington for duty at 
headquarters, and conduct the remaining companies to Carlisle 
Barracks, Pennsylvania. 

The action of Virginia proved to be the supreme test of 
loyalty to the National Government for all Virginia officers in 
the United States Army. On the 2 2d of April, General Joseph 
E. Johnston tendered his resignation. On the same day the 
Legislature of Virginia unanimously confirmed the nomination of 
Robert E. Lee, who had resigned his commission in the United 
States Army on the 19th — to command the military forces of 
the State, with the rank of major general. It is not known 
that any high commission was tendered Major Thomas by the 
authorities of his native State, but certain it is that he, an army 
officer of twenty years standing, entered upon his duties in 
obedience to the orders of the Adjutant General's Office at 
Washington, without the spur of promotion, at a time when 
hundreds of citizens of the Northern States were flocking to 
Washington unwilling to enter the army in any capacity short 
of that of brigadier general. On the 3rd of May, Major Thomas 
was appointed colonel of the Second Cavalry made vacant by 
the resignation of Albert Sidney Johnston, a Keniackian. Of 
the four field officers of his regiment, Johnston, Lee, and Van 



Dorn luid gone to seek their rights in tlie S(nilheni Ccjiifederacy, 
leaving Thomas to assume command by regular promoticjn. Tlie 
3rd of June found Colonel Thomas in command of the First 
Brigade of the Army of Pennsylvania under General Patterson, 
and on the 2d of July he participated in his first engagement 
in the War of the Rebellion, where two men, destined to hold 
their places in the records of that struggle, while history remains, 
met for the first time in the shock of battle, George H, Thomas 
and Stonewall Jackson. This was at Falling Waters, whence 
Thomas advanced up the Shenandoah Valley, driving in the 
outlying forces of Johnston at Bunker Hill on the 15th. With 
the masterly inactivity of that campaign Colonel Thomas had 
nothing to do. General Patterson, the commander of the ex- 
pedition, allowed Johnston to get away from Winchester, and 
join Beauregard at Bull Run, without molestation, and on his 
shoulders and on those of the officers who gave him his orders 
the responsibility rests. 

General Robert Anderson, the heroic defender of Fort Sump- 
ter, accepting appointment to the command of the District of 
Kentucky, was accorded the privilege of selecting four officers 
to be appointed brigadier generals. He chose Wm. T. Sher- 
man, Don Carlos Buell, and O. M. Mitchell. 

There are numerous claimants for the honor of suggesting the 
name of George H. Thomas. Lieutenant Thomas M. Anderson, 
of Thomas' regiment, named his colonel to his uncle Robert. 
Hon. Sam. Randall, then a i)rivate in the First City Cavalry of 
Philadelphia, wrote his friend Colonel Scott, Assistant Secretary 
of War, urging him to mention Colonel Thomas, his brigade 
commander, to Secretary Cameron for ai)pointment as brigadier 
general. General Sherman told me that he went to President 
Lincoln and insisted upon the promotion of his old classmate. 
Whether one, or all these friends and admires had the necessary 
influence, his commission was issued on the 17th of August, 1861, 



and a week later he received his assignment to a command in 
the Department of the Cumberland, where the real drama of 
his life began. 

I was at that time one of five thousand zealous patriots, who, 
with a vague idea of the duties before us, and with no knowl- 
edge to guide us in their performance, encouraged by the hope 
of an early cessation of hostilities, yet pleased with the novelty 
of our new mode of life, were encamped under the spreading 
branches of the grand old oaks in Dick Robinson's woodland pas- 
ture, in Garrard county, Ky. News came that a new general was 
coming to relieve General William Nelson in command of the 
camp. Some were pleased, for the brusque seaman, unlike his 
brother, Thomas Nelson, was not always a Chesterfield in manner, 
albeit a just and even kind commander towards those, who, like 
himself, were honestly striving to master the duties of their posi- 
tions. I received the information with a heavy heart, for I had 
given up all hope of promotion in my regiment by accepting 
a captaincy on the staff. 

This appointment having been made by Nelson, by virtue of 
authority vested in him by the War Department, it seemed to 
me that I was like a Methodist on probation to be received 
into full connection or not at the pleasure of the Government. 
Looking back upon the scene presented to the eyes of Gen- 
eral Thomas, with the experience gained later, of well-organized 
military camps, I do not wonder that his heart sunk at the 
prospect of moulding the crowd of half clad, undisciplined men 
and boys, gathered from every walk in life, into an army of 
fighting men. Most of them liad been reared in the mountains 
of Kentucky and Tennessee, ignorant, uncouth, and independent 
of control. Some were from the blue grass counties, the centre 
of the wealth and culture of the State. There was Fry, of 
Danville, whose eloquent tongue had silenced the oratory of 
Brecken ridge, the apostle of secession, and Croxton, whose 



fiery zeal had carried captive tlie hearts of Iniiulreils in his 
native county, and induced them, even in spite of their sym- 
pathy with the cause for which the South had taken up arms, 
to enlist under the banner of their country. Kelly was there 
with his battalion recruited from beneath the shadow of the 
Confederate flag waving in triumph from the spire of the Court 
House at Cynthiana. 

Garrard, cool and sedate, with a regiment of mountaineers, 
Bramlette with his Boyle County men. Carter and Byrd, and 
Houk with 1,500 refugees from East Tennessee, whose torn 
clothing and bleeding feet, when they arrived in camp, gave 
token of the rough and thorny paths through which they had 
found their way to liberty. There, too, was Wolford with 1,200 
mounted men recruited in the valleys of Casey County. It 
was a heterogeneous mass, ranging in intellectual endowment 
from the alumni of the most renowned colleges in the land 
down to the youngster whose principal accomplishments were to 
read and write and ride a horse, but all were animated by one 
sentiment, and for its maintenance were ready to make the 
supreme sacrifice of life itself. Love for the Union. 

To us came Thomas, to mould, to guide, to instruct, to form 
from this unpromising material a body of disciplined soldiers of 
which the nation may well be proud. Later came several regi- 
ments from Ohio, Lidiana, and Minnesota, which formed the 
First ])ivision of the Army of the Ohio. A division, which, 
with little change in organization, followed its heroic leader 
along the bloody i)athway from Nashville to Chattanooga and 
Atlanta, thence with Sherman to the sea, up through the 
sands of the Carolinas, and on through Virginia to the National 
Capital. There were hundreds of men there whose homes were 
laid waste by guerillas, their families insulted and driven to the 
woods for shelter, who bore their banners bravely to the front 
on many a hotly contested field, nor fi.irled them till victory 



— 14 — 

was won. General Thomas was forty-five years of age when he 
assumed command at Camp Dick Robinson on the i6th of 
September, 1861, and was the embodiment of manly strength 
and beauty. He was six feet in height with proportions large 
and symetrical. Thick clustering curls of light auburn hair, 
that a girl might envy, overarched a broad white forehead. 
Large blue eyes, canopied by heavy eyebrows, a luxuriant beard 
slightly tinged with grey, a large straight nose, lips slightly com- 
pressed, strong massive jaws, and a dignified expression of coun- 
tenance are the prominent features in a portrait that rises before 
me as I recall him after the lapse of over a quarter of a century. 
Add to this a most majestic presence, firm, benignant, mild, 
unvarying. Earnest of purpose, wise in planning, bold in execu- 
tion, obedient to orders and requiring obedience, patient, yet 
resolute, a man who went straight to his objective point over- 
coming all obstacles, and you can form some idea of the man 
suddenly dropped down into our camp as a being from another 
sphere. He still wore his colonel's uniform with the buff 
shoulder straps of a colonel of cavalry. As time wore on and 
my relations to the command brought me into constant com- 
munication with him, the feeling of admiration which his per- 
sonal appearance inspired ripened into the most unbounded love 
and veneration. 

It has been said that " no man is a hero to his own valet," 
which means, I suppose, that great men usually throw off the 
restraints of society in the freedom of their own homes, and 
laying aside the stilts occupy a common footing with the rest of 
mankind. General Thomas used no stilts. He was as respectful, 
and in all regards as attentive, to a remark made by a subordi- 
nate as to General Anderson or General Sherman, both of whom 
visited our camp. He was the most patient of men, moving 
steadily forward in the prosecution of the great work of mould- 
ing us into a compact army, he wasted no time in complaints. 



— 15 — 

nor useless upbraidings. 15ut he covered tlie fields (or miles 
around, with s(iuads of men engaged in company drill ; left, left, 
left, could be heard on all sides from the rising of the sun even 
to the going down of the same. He attended dress parade of 
each regiment, inspected clothing, arms, and accoutrements. 
He instructed the quartermaster and commissary, the ordnance 
officer and provost marshal, in the duties of their departments, 
giving to each an hour in the day or night when they came to 
him to learn how best to render themselves efficient. Taken 
from civil life, and suddenly placed in positions of great trust 
and responsibility, with no knowledge of army methods, I can 
well see how, to a less forbearing commander, our blunders 
would have proven too much for his patience. All his staff 
officers were young men, whose hearts were easily won by kind- 
ness and appreciation of the difficulties surrounding them, and 
step by step the process went on. Plough boys exchanged their 
slouching gait for an erect military carriage, officers found more 
interest in studying tactics than in reading newspapers and 
talking politics. On every side the signs of improvement were 
visible. It began to be apparent that military life meant some- 
thing more than for men to come together and be fed and 
clothed, waiting for an opportunity to shoot at a crowd of rebels 
in battle. The schooling that we were receiving at the hands 
of the master, was not without its effect upon himself. If he 
was the first trained soldier we had seen, so was ours the first 
volunteer camp of instruction which he had been assigned ic 
command. The patience and self-restraint which he was called 
upon to exercise, I have no doubt, had a wonderful influence 
upon his after life. Mr. Justice Harlan, then colonel of the 
Tenth Kentucky Infantry, said to me the other day "General 
Thomas was a greater man at the close of the war than he was 
at the beginning, not more in the public estimation than in in- 
trinsic worth." I do not doubt it. His mind was disciplined 



- i6 — 

to study, and even as on frontier posts he had devoted it to the 
analyzation of flowers and rocks, and to the Indian languages, 
so now his mind took in a larger scope. He was studying 
human nature from a new standpoint, and mastering the subject. 

General Thomas was scrupulously neat in dress. He was a 
clean man in thought, speech and behavior. He was as ready 
as any to laugh heartily at a witty reparte, and enjoyed a funny 
anecdote, but for vulgarity in any form he had no taste. I never 
knew any man but General Sherman to take the slightest liberty 
with him. Even his faithful friend and adjutant general, Colonel 
Flynt, throughout the entire period of their long and close com- 
panship, never cease to treat him with the most considerate 
deference, standing up in a manly way for his opinion, if occa- 
sion demanded, for General Thomas was never dictatorial in 
manner, and liked men who could give a reason for the faith 
that was in them, and might not have resented familiarity, but 
noboby ever offered it. 

"There is a dignity which doth hedge a king," and like a 
king in arms. General Thomas so bore himself as to win from 
every officer and private soldier in his army, the involuntary 
homage due a sovereign. Yet he was always approachable by 
any soldier in the ranks. He was a most pleasant companion. 
He conversed easily and fluently. He was a good listener. 
Yet there was that in the majestic presence, the steady gaze of 
those large blue eyes, even though the expression was most 
benignant, that created in the breasts of his most intimate com- 
panions a desire to always appear at their best, lest they might 
impair the confidence and respect with which he had honored 
them. 

Thus, to a certain extent, he was with us, but not of us. 
With us in all the hardships of long and arduous campaigns — 
with us m battle, exposing his life as freely as any soldier on 
the skirmish line — yet not of us in all the i)astimes with which 
we tried to kill tlic long hours in camj). 



— 17 — 

His mind, given to the details of the several departments of 
his command, whether a division, a corps, or an arm)-, took in 
every particular. He was especially kind and most considerate 
towards young officers. His judge advocate, Colonel Hunter 
Brooke (of happy memory), told me a few years since that in 
every case prepared for trial by court martial General Thomas 
went over the entire case, reading brief, evidence, and state- 
ments carefully, before ordering a court to be convened, and, 
if he could discover the slightest trace of malice in the charges 
or specifications, or if they bore evidence of being cumulative 
in character, he not infrequently tore them up and restored 
the officer to duty. Such was his well-known sense of justice 
in this regard that it came to be understood that charges must 
be well sustained by proof and devoid of malice if the party 
preferring them expected a court to be convened. Colonel 
Brooke mentioned the names of a number of officers saved to 
the service by this habit of investigation by General Thomas, 
who subsequently became well known for their efficiency. It 
is not surprising that the staff departments of his army were 
under the control of men who took deep interest in the welfare 
of the army, for on their faithful performance of duty de- 
pended the duration of their stay at headquarters. 

Inspired by a noble ambition to rise in his profession he was 
too magnanimous to take even one step towards advancement 
at the expense of the downfall of another. 

After the battle of Shiloh, General Grant was relieved of 
command of the Army of the Tennessee, which was bestowed 
upon General Thomas. Finding that General Grant was aggrieved 
he requested that the command might be restored to Grant 
and he with his division be returned to the Army of the Ohio. 
This request being granted by General Halleck, the command 
of the Army of the Ohio was tendered him six months later 
when he not only declined it but requested that General Buell 
3 



miglit be permitted to carry out liis plans for the expulsion of 
Bragg from the State of Kentucky. 

When, finally, the order came relieving General Rosecrans 
from the command at Chattanooga, and a peremptory order 
was received by General Thomas to assume command of the 
army, he at once obeyed it, but parted with his old commander, 
only after reviewing his plans for relief of the post, which he 
carried out, and, with characteristic magnanimity, gave Gen- 
eral Rosecrans credit for having originated them. 

I have seen him on many battle fields. Calm, cool, and 
brave, his countenance bore no trace of excitement. Watchful 
of every move of his antagonist, he covered every point. 
Placing a regiment here, a brigade there, or a battery of artil- 
lery yonder, he inspired every soldier in the ranks by his mere 
presence on the field with the belief that victory was sure, even 
if they did not live to see it. 

This feeling of security was such that it became a common 
topic of conversation. On the night of the 19th of Sei^tember, 
on the fields of Chickamauga, he sat at his camp fire in the 
woods. On the ground near him lay General Willard and 
several others, members of his staff, who, worn with the fatigues 
of a hard day's battle, had fallen asleep. The General sat 
with his face to the fire bending forward studying a map held 
at an angle to allow the light to fall upon it. The sentinel 
walking his beat became aware that a crowd of men were near 
him, although not a word was spoken. Peering into the gloom 
he saw hundreds of men, all gazing intently upon the face 
of their commander, to divine if possible from the expression 
of his countenance what the chances of the morrow's fight 
might be. 

Night had fallen upon a field strewn with mangled forms of 
men, who, but twenty-four hours before, were buoyant with life 
and hope, upon the faces of the dead turned upwards to tiic sky, 



— 19 — 

upon long lines of infantry, faint for lark of food and exhausted 
for lack of sleep by weary marches and desperate fighting, 
upon the lonely vidette holding his solitary vigil away upon 
the flank, but the general sat there studying the topography 
of the ground over which his army must fight, and the lines 
that must be lield at all hazards. 

He was not more the rock of Chickamauga than he was the 
right arm of General Sherman on the Atlanta campaign. Wise 
in council, brave and steady in action, a tower of strength to 
the whole army. 

I have not the time nor you the patience to follow him 
through that long and arduous campaign, nor even to touch 
upon the magnificent charge of his army at Mission Ridge, and 
the crowning event of his military career, the defeat of Hood's 
army at Nashville. As a tactician he was voted slow by gen- 
erals who placed a lower estimate upon the lives of their 
soldiers. He preferred flanking the enemy out of strong posi- 
tions that he might meet them on fairer terms in the open 
fields, consequently more of his men are living to tell the tale 
of their campaigns and battles. At Rocky-faced Ridge at the 
beginning of the Atlanta campaign he advised holding Buzzard 
Roost Gap with a corps and moving the main army to the rear 
of the enemy, through Snake Creek Gap, a movement which 
would have ended the Atlanta campaign at Resaca by elimi- 
nating Johnston's army from the theatre of war. 

When finally the commanding general unable to defeat or 
capture his antagonist, marched away with two-thirds of his army 
to the sea, leaving Thomas to cope with him with such troops as 
he could concentrate at Nashville, his combinations nearly frus- 
trated by a subordinate, who, failing to comprehend the mighty 
purpose of his commander, came near losing two corps of his 
army at Columbia, the genius for command of General George 
H. Thomas had an opportunity to assert itself. He never 



became confused or lost his head in terrible emergencies. Bold, 
independent, and decisive, he wrought out his ])lans, and deaf 
alike to entreaties and threats chose rather to surrender the 
comTiiand of the army than to risk defeat upon the icy slopes of 
Overton's Hill. His purpose vvas not to drive the enemy back 
or flank him out of position but to destroy him. You all know 
the grand result. How Logan on his way to take command of 
the army corps, relieving Schofield, who was ordered to super- 
sede Thomas, read the news of victory in Louisville, and like a 
soldier and gentleman read it with tears of rejoicing. When he 
hurled his army upon a stronghold of the enemy it was to insure 
success. His columns moved forward with the force of an ava- 
lanche and not one charge that he ordered was ever repulsed. 

In the language of the lamented Opdycke: 

" Like the great Epaminondas, who, dying childless left to 
Thebes two fair daughters, Mantinea and Leuctra, so twenty- 
three centuries later another great general left to his country, 
aye and to all mankind, if the preservation of the Republic be 
a boom to humanity, the princely heritage of Mill Springs, 
Chickamaugua, Mission Ridge, and Nashville." 

His memory is enshrined in the hearts of his soldiers, who 
with the light of battle on their faces, followed where he led, 
always to victory, and when the history of the War of the 
Rebellion shall be read by the clear cold light of the record, 
shining upon all alike, it will be found that they had good 
reason for their faith. 

Perhaps I have lingered too long over the details of a picture 
that impressed itself so indelibly upon my mind as to awaken a 
desire to present it to you as I saw it. 

I am not an artist, and so cannot with a few artistic touches 
of the brush set before you a portrait of this great character, 



shown ill the iu)])lc liiu;uneiUs of a face and form such as no 
artist can flatter and no i)cn can over-draw. 

As to my untutored vision when I first met liim, General 
Thomas seemed the incarnation of all that was grand in 
presence and noble in character, so in after years, when tiie 
war was ended, and I had leisure to look back over the part 
he had performed in bringing it to a successful issue, the im- 
pression remained the same, growing only the more permanent 
and the more powerful with advancing years. 



